Electrical Outlets
We wanted to be able to use our 1500 watt inverter all over the boat. Dragging cords gets old real quick, and I didn't like the idea of putting switches in the electrical lines to change from shore power to inverter power. There are inverters that can make the switch automatically, but we didn't have that type.
Our solution was to install two sets of wiring. I took out the duplex boxes - the ones that had two plugs - and installed fourplex boxes. That way we could wire the boat with two complete sets of wiring. One side of each box was connected to 110 volt shore power, the other was connected to the inverter.
There is room around each box the factory installed to cut it out just a bit bigger to take the larger box. Once the box is fit, it's a simple job to install a second run of wire. In our case, we installed new wire for both the inverter, and to replace the original wire Hunter installed.
Once again, Hunter cut corners just a bit too much for my taste. They used untinned, non-marine wire, and to make it worse, they routed it with no concern for where the wire would end up. We found more than one place where the wire had been pinched between parts of the boat and had been pounded flat, exposing bare copper. If the two legs of the wire had comeinto contact, it could have been all over for Rainbow Chaser. In addition, I went to 12 guage all around instead of the 14 ga. that was originally there.
The last thing was to color the receptacles for the inverter a different color. If I'd planned ahead more, I could have bought different colors, but with them all the same, it gets to be frustrating to figure out each time which is shore power, and which is the inverter.
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